Dark
by Samalander
Summary: Set sometime after "Apprentice", before "Aftershock". Robin remembers wants and needs, and a dark room. Heavy SladeRobin. Implied RobinStarfire.


DARK

**Author's Ramble: I own nothing but a laptop and a bottle of pills. This fic contains heavy, sharp slashes and some sexual content, so if you don't like that kind of thing there's obviously something wrong with you. I've thrown a bone to Robin/Starfire shippers at the end of all the man on man humping, in case you were curious. Visit my website for more slashy efiction.**

Dark.  
A one-shot.

_It's dark, and you know he's behind you, but you keep your eyes fixed on the distant square of light from the doorway to keep them from adjusting to the darkness. You can feel his breath on your neck and the warmth of his skin; he's taken his mask off. A hand on your shoulder turns you around. His mouth is on yours, hot and wet. You close your eyes, and you don't resist. You let him touch you, and you don't resist, because here and now, you're alone. There's no one to see, no one to pretend for, and you've wished for it, wanted it, needed it for far too long to push him away now._

Robin laid the note down on his bed, smoothing the sheets around it. He stared thoughtfully at it a moment, then took one of his birdarangs from his belt and drew the blade across his hand. Blood filled the well of his palm, then spilled through his fingers and dripped onto his neatly-written note. It wasn't much; just enough to get the point across, to keep them from following him.  
Or maybe...  
Maybe it was, in its own way, a test. To see if they _would_ follow him, look for him. To find out if what they felt wasn't just need, but want.  
Turning away from his bed, he opened his closet.

_You feel his lips brushing against your skin. His fingertips leave burning trails down your sides. You inhale deeply, mouth open, and arch your back. Your arms lay above your head, and his hands hold them there. You feel blissfully exposed, though you know that the darkness is so complete that you could not see him if you tried, nor he you. Yet his mouth meets yours again and again with astonishing precision. His tongue flicks at the most sensitive parts of your body as if he knows where they are by instinct. The hot and angry hardness of his groin presses against yours, and you turn your head to look at the distant light in the doorway._

He had already hung up his costume. He found his orange and black outfit folded neatly in a drawer, just where he had left it. Because he had known, somehow, after the celebratory waffle breakfast and the hugs all around, that he wouldn't be able to stay in the Tower for very long. He had friends here, of course, and occasionally he was struck with a sense of something like duty, but it wasn't the same as what he had had in the clock tower, in that dark room. He pulled off his clothes and stood naked for a moment in the cold silence of his room, staring at himself in the mirror. When Bruce had tried to teach him about the necessities of _needs_ and the terrible dangers of _wants,_ he hadn't quite understood. Slade had been the one who'd taught him what the words really meant.

_The people inside the darkness are not the same as the ones without. In the light, behind the safety of his mask, he is cold, uncaring. Things that were good and clean in the warm embrace of that dark room seem dirty in the flickering light of his monitors. Your uniform feels wrong on your skin. You want to feel the simple pleasure of nudity again, to feel his hands on you. Standing in the light, these wants feel wrong. The darkness beckons, and you glance towards it meaningfully, but he ignores you. Finally your lust and anger make you bold enough to speak to him.  
"Why do you need me?" You ask. "There are plenty of others you could have."  
There is a pause before he responds coldly, "I don't need you." The words sting like needles. You don't know why. You can feel fear building in your chest, cold and thick, and you think, "what is happening to me?" But before you can think any further, he takes you back to the room, to the dark.  
"I don't need you," he breathes in your ear, between kisses. "But I want you."_

Robin looked around his room, at the perfectly made bed, at the spotless mirror, at the blood-spattered note on his pillow. He had put everything away except the tiny ear-chip that Slade had given him, and his Titans communicator. Walking to the open window, he drew his arm back and threw the yellow communicator as hard as he could and watched it splash into the choppy black waters of the bay. The chip he turned on and fit into his ear. White noise filled his mind from end to end, pushing away all treacherous thoughts of duty, of loyalty, of friendship. Those were only things he needed, trivial in comparison to the wants that he had let build up over the years. He'd wanted to avenge his parents' deaths. He'd wanted to climb to the top of the highest ladder in the big top. He'd wanted to fall. But he'd been told that he needed to think clearly, that he needed to move on with his life. And so he had.  
When he'd been with Bruce there had been times when he'd wanted to hit someone, and keep hitting them, to bring his fists down again and again until he couldn't lift his arms any longer. He'd wanted the anger to take over. He'd wanted to make the pain go away.  
Slade had made the pain go away, at least for a little while. He and Slade and the wants had helped each other in the little dark room, while the needs waited in the light for them to return.

_He is inside of you. You moan into his mouth, and close your eyes to shut out the light. Neither of you speak. There are no words here. His ragged breaths are the only sound in the darkness. His body-his heat, his scent, his energy fills you from the tips of your toes to the ends of your hair. You can feel your body's ecstasy rising as a sound in your throat, and when you can hold it in no longer you cry out. You cry again, and again, and again as he moves within you. Every muscle tenses. Every nerve tingles. Your mind barely registers that he's kissing you again, roughly, desperately. Your pleasure mounts until finally, unable to bear any more stimulation, your body shuts down. For a moment, you are somewhere else, somewhere quiet and beautiful. All too soon you are returned to your aching body, to painful, twitching muscles and tears drying on your face, to the sickening realization that it is going to be over and you will have to go back into the light.  
For a while he stays inside of you. He kisses your cheek, strokes your hair, nibbles at your throat. You long to stay here with him forever, in this blissful, blind world of want. Then, grunting, he lifts himself off of you, and the cold air rushes in to scrape across your bare and sensitive skin._

He kept to the shadows as he walked, but didn't bother to be quiet. He lived here, after all, and besides, it was a lot easier to hear someone trying to be quiet than someone who wasn't. He walked by his friends' rooms. Someone more sentimental might have stopped to gaze at each nameplate. Robin didn't even look.  
He took the elevator down to ground level. The television was still on in the main room, seemingly random images moving across the screen in searing white light. Robin turned away from it and looked out a window at the darkened harbor. There was no moon, and most of the energy conscious citizens of Jump City had shut their lights off. He smiled a little and headed for the door.  
"Robin?"  
No.  
"Could you not sleep?" Starfire's voice penetrated the static ringing in Robin's ears, ripped cheerful, innocent holes in his iron resolve. He half-turned to look at her.  
"I have descended to engage in the ritual of nocturnal feasting," she said. She had a slice of cake, covered in mustard, on a plate. "Do you wish to join me?" Her brow wrinkled as she took in his attire. "To where do you go, friend?"  
Robin turned to face her. The mindless light of the television flickered over one side of her face, leaving the other in shadow. Her eyes seemed wide and pleading; he could tell her anything, and she would believe it.  
He was too tired to lie to her.  
"I'm going away," he said.  
She must have recognized something in the flat, dead tone of his voice, because she didn't ask why. Instead, she said, "But we need you."  
Robin turned away again without responding, and continued towards the door. It was a hundred steps from the main room to the ground-level door, he knew. It seemed a hundred steps too many, right now.  
"Please don't go," he heard her say. The door had never seemed so far away.  
"Please," she said as he reached for the button that would open the door to the night. "I want you to stay."  
He stopped. The determined momentum that had been carrying him forward spun away, and every muscle seemed to give out at once. She was there to catch him. She still didn't ask why-somewhere inside, everyone knows why. Somewhere inside of everyone, the war between _want_ and _need_ rages on.  
Away from the light of the television, they ate stale cake with mustard on it. It was disgusting. Robin didn't care.

_End._

**Reviews are appreciated. Critiques will be respectfully considered. Flames will be masturbated to, only my vibrator is out of batteries and if you force me to go and get new ones I will be very sad. This fic contains no subliminal** _visit my website, also drink happy fizz brand cola_ **messages.**


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